STARKVILLE — The city is embarking on a project to shed more light on the history of 10 sites that were significant to the civil rights movement locally.
Aldermen on Tuesday approved partnering with the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University to create a brochure highlighting selected sites and telling their stories.
Robert Luckett, director for the Margaret Walker Center and project coordinator for the brochure, said this document will represent a condensed physical history of the civil rights movement in the city.
“There’s something powerful about being in those places … to stand where history took place moves people,” Luckett said. “It moves me every day when I get to stand in places like where Medgar Evers’ home is in Jackson.”
The brochure will include the Dr. Douglas D.L. Conner House, Second Baptist Church, Emerson Elementary School, Armstrong Middle School, and others. Luckett said the locations were provided by the city and were based on a 2022 architectural survey conducted by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
“We didn’t just make this list up. … We depended on the city to work with their constituents and to work with the commission they’ve got there to identify those sites for us,” Luckett said. “We’re not the experts. You guys who live there are.”
The brochure will be a 4-by-7-inch multi-page document including overviews of each historical location chosen, along with photos and a map of all 10 sites. The project will include digital files that will be available on the city’s website.
It will be completed by Aug. 1, when 250 printed copies of the brochure should be delivered to the city. Daniel Havelin, city planner, said the printed copies of the brochure will be available at City Hall, along with other undetermined locations.
The total cost of the project is estimated to be $10,000, with half being covered by a Certified Local Government grant from the Mississippi Department of History and Archives.
Havelin said these 10 locations are just one part of a larger plan. Other locations that were not initially selected will be addressed in future projects.
“Any sites not initially included in this resource will be included in future projects,” Havelin said in an email to The Dispatch. “One possible future project that we are discussing is the creation of an interactive story map of the sites detailed in the survey.”
Luckett said the brochure will condense the information from the survey and make it more easily digestible for the public, including visitors to the city. He suggested it may even drive more visitors to Starkville.
“We know for a fact that the Freedom Trail markers, the Blues Trail markers and the Writers Trail markers around the state of Mississippi have been incredibly popular. People have come from all over the world just to see these signs,” Luckett said. “… There’s potential that this will drive that sort of visibility to these places that could benefit from being seen.”
Havelin said this brochure will bring recognition to an underserved community in the city. He hopes it will help to increase awareness around preservation of these historic sites.
“This project will serve as a tool for promoting awareness of the historic resources of the African American community during the civil rights era,” Havelin said. “As a society, the more aware of something we are, the more likely there will be support for protecting it.”
Yulanda Haddix, president of the Oktibbeha County chapter of the NAACP, said she thinks the brochure is a “great” idea, but she wants to ensure Black voices are a part of the process.
“The issue that we always have is that people have these grand ideas about our representation, but we’re never the ones that have the voice,” Haddix said. “… I think it’s great to have people know that this exists here. I just want to make sure that it comes from people who experienced the history.”
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